On June 18, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission published notice that Texas Gas Transmission, LLC has filed an application to build a new natural gas lateral whose entire purpose is to supply a single electric generating station. The notice, docketed as CP26-536-000, opens the formal review of what the company calls the Dearborn County Lateral Project — an approximately 12-mile, 20-inch-diameter delivery line that would connect Texas Gas' existing mainline to Vistra Corporation's Miami Fort Power Plant in Hamilton County, Ohio. The application was filed on May 29, 2026, under section 7(c) of the Natural Gas Act and Part 157 of the Commission's regulations.

The document answers the first question a deployment reporter asks of any new pipeline: who is it for, and how much will it move. According to the notice, the project would create 265,000 dekatherms per day of firm natural gas transportation service running from Texas Gas' existing mainline facilities to the Miami Fort Plant. That is not an open-access expansion serving a broad market; it is a dedicated delivery lateral with one named end customer, and the notice states that the project includes a new delivery meter sized for that plant.

"The Project will create 265,000 dekatherms per day of firm natural gas transportation service from Texas Gas' existing mainline facilities to Vistra's Miami Fort Plant. Texas Gas estimates the total cost of the Project to be $86,247,503 and proposes a new incremental recourse rate to apply to the Project capacity."— Texas Gas Transmission, LLC; Notice of Application, FERC Docket CP26-536-000, source

The cost figure in the notice is precise rather than rounded — $86,247,503 — and the company proposes to recover it through a new incremental recourse rate applied to the project's capacity. In FERC practice, an incremental rate means the cost of the new facilities is assigned to the new service rather than rolled into the rates paid by existing shippers across the system. That structure is what a reader should watch in the docket as the case develops, because it determines who ultimately pays for the lateral.

The application also fits a wider pattern the energydocket desk has been mapping: pipeline laterals filed to deliver firm fuel to dispatchable gas generation. The notice frames the lateral as new construction rather than a contract restructuring — it describes constructing an approximately 12-mile, 20-inch-diameter line plus appurtenant and auxiliary facilities, and a new delivery meter for the Miami Fort Plant. A 20-inch diameter at the stated 265,000 dekatherms per day of firm capacity tells a reader the line is purpose-built for a single large offtaker rather than a general system expansion. The notice attributes the application to section 7(c) of the Natural Gas Act, the certificate-of-public-convenience-and-necessity provision under which FERC weighs whether a project is required by the public convenience and necessity before it can be built.

The route and the parties

Although the project takes its name from Dearborn County, the notice describes a line that crosses three states. Texas Gas states the lateral and its appurtenant and auxiliary facilities would run through Dearborn County, Indiana; Boone County, Kentucky; and Hamilton County, Ohio. The Miami Fort Plant, the destination, sits in Hamilton County, Ohio, and the notice identifies it as an electric generation facility owned by Vistra. Texas Gas, the applicant, lists its address as 9 Greenway Plaza, Suite 2800, Houston, Texas.

The multi-state path matters for the environmental and water-quality review that the Natural Gas Act requires. The notice states that a water quality certificate under section 401 of the Clean Water Act is required from both the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet's Department of Environmental Protection and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. FERC directs Texas Gas to file copies of those certification requests, including the dates they were submitted, along with each certifying agency's decision or evidence that the certification was waived. The presence of two state certifying agencies in the record signals where procedural delay can enter a project of this kind.

The clock FERC has started

The notice does more than describe the project; it establishes deadlines. The Commission set the deadline for filing a motion to intervene at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on July 6, 2026. Intervention is the step that gives a person or organization formal party status in the proceeding, with the right to receive filings and seek rehearing of the eventual order. The notice lays out three avenues for public involvement — filing comments, protesting the filing, and moving to intervene — and states there is no fee or cost for filing comments or intervening.

On the environmental side, the notice invokes section 157.9 of the Commission's rules, under which FERC staff have 90 days from the notice to either complete environmental review and place it in the public record or issue a Notice of Schedule for Environmental Review. That schedule, if issued, would set the anticipated date for a final environmental impact statement or an environmental assessment. The same provision ties the timing of other federal authorizations to that document, requiring them to be completed within 90 days of the staff's environmental decision.

For energydocket readers tracking the gas-to-power buildout, the Dearborn County Lateral is a compact example of a recurring pattern: a pipeline operator filing a dedicated lateral to firm up fuel supply for a specific generating asset. The record at this stage establishes the capacity (265,000 Dth/day), the stated cost ($86,247,503), the route across three states, the named end user (Vistra's Miami Fort Plant), and the rate mechanism (a new incremental recourse rate). What it does not yet contain is FERC's environmental finding or any order on the certificate — those will arrive later in the docket. Until then, the filing is a proposal under review, and the July 6 intervention deadline is the first procedural marker on it.